1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the area of container cap removers and more particularly to the area of bottle cap removers for bottle caps having a safety seal.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatus have long been available for prying off compression fit bottle caps. Bottle cap removers for traditional soft drink and beer bottles are prominent examples. More recently, there has been a movement away from the use of bottle caps which require such removers. Many containers are available with compression fit caps which may be screwed off as well as pried off. Plastic containers, such as milk containers are available with caps that may be unscrewed. Such caps, however, provide only a limited certainty of complete seal under normally experienced conditions of transportation and/or storage. In response to this problem, bottlers have resorted to the use of threaded caps which include a safety seal. Hereinafter, such threaded caps will be called "safety caps". The safety seal holds a cap secure until the consumer purposefully opens the container. The soft drink type and milk, water or juice container type threaded safety caps predominate this class of container closures.
In the typical soft drink container type safety cap, the safety seal is broken by the use of moderate force applied when initially unscrewing the cap to fracture the safety seal. Standard milk, water or juice container type safety seals are designed to be removed prior to unscrewing the cap. Here, it is necessary to first separate a sealing ring from a safety cap before the cap may be removed from the container. This can be a difficult task for all but those with strong hands and strong fingernails. The present invention provides an apparatus to easily remove such a safety cap by easily separating the sealing ring from the cap so that the cap may be used for resealing the container.
A typical milk, water or juice container includes an externally threaded neck opening which stands above the liquid level of the container. The external threads are designed to mate with internal threads formed on the inner wall of a removeable cap. Immediately below the threaded portion of the container neck, the neck is circumscribed by a set of angled teeth. These teeth are arranged so as to align, in a ratcheting arrangement, with angled, internal teeth on a removeable safety seal releaseably attached to the safety cap. The interior teeth on the safety seal allow the cap to be easily screwed on to the neck, while resisting efforts to unscrew the cap.
The safety seal is connected to the cap by means of frangible posts which extend downwardly from the cap rim to the safety seal. These posts are designed to be sufficiently durable to resist the separation of the safety seal from the safety cap during the initial sealing of the container and during shipping and storage. At the same time, these posts must be sufficiently severable to allow the user to separate the safety seal from the remaining portion of the cap. Removal of the safety seal from the cap can be difficult.